California Chrome comes from humble beginning
COALINGA, Calif. — There is no bluegrass here or limestone fences framing postcard-ready landscapes. A drought has drained the San Joaquin Valley of any color other than beige. There is no mistaking the smell in the air, either: It is cow manure from the feedlot of California’s largest beef producer.
This is a working ranch, after all. The horses here are a sidelight, not sheik-owned stallions that command $100,000 in the breeding shed.
As thoroughbred racing goes, Harris Farms is more a blue-plate than blue-blood
See
Page
breeding operation.
But this month, a horse named California Chrome, who was bred on a patch of this 14,000-acre ranch, ran off with the 140th Kentucky Derby and lifted the spirits of smalltime horsemen everywhere. The colt was bred by Steve Coburn and Perry Martin, first-time breeders whose success has provided a shot of adrenaline for California breeders, long considered the poorer cousins of their Kentucky counterparts.
Lucky Pulpit, the stallion that sired California Chrome, won only three of his 22 starts.
Love the Chase, the mare, is a little thing who managed only a single victory in six races.
But Coburn and Martin saw something in them. They bought Love the Chase for $8,000, and their story already has entered racing lore.
The breeding was not luck. The duo had studied the horses’ bloodlines and physical characteristics. On second look, the pedigree of Lucky Pulpit seemed to offer milliondollar bloodlines at a nickel price.
“He’s got Secretariat on his daddy’s side, and Seattle Slew, and the mare for A.P. Indy by Secretariat,” said Coburn, referring to the 1973 and 1977 Triple Crown champions and the 1992 Horse of the Year.
There are plenty of horsemen on backwater ranches who hope he is right. Larry and Marianne Williams, who break and train horses on their farm in Idaho, own Lucky Pulpit. They have heard from stallion stations in Kentucky but are inclined to leave him in California.
The yearling and the foal following Love the Chase around the paddock at Harris Farms are not going anywhere, either. They are full sisters to California Chrome and belong to Martin and Coburn. Greatness, they argue, is not limited by geography.
“He has no clue where he was born,” Coburn said. “All he knows is he loves to run. He’s got a tremendous heart; we’ve seen it because he never gives up. He keeps trying and trying and trying, and he keeps winning and winning and winning by more and more and more.”